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Article: Book Review

Jelly's Blues: the Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton

by Joel Roberts
October 2, 2004

Jelly's Blues: the Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton By Howard Reich and William Gaines Da Capo Press 2003 There are two heroes in Jelly's Blues. One, of course, is the book's subject, legendary early jazz composer and pianist Jelly Roll Morton. The other is an eccentric New ...

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Article: Book Review

Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela

by Joel Roberts
September 5, 2004

Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela By Hugh Masekela and Michael CheersCrown Publishers 2004 Subtitled the “The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela," this powerful autobiography of the veteran jazz/ world music trumpeter is much, much more: it's the story of a man's--and a nation's--journey through tragedy, turmoil and ...

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Article: Book Review

Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams

by Bob Jacobson
August 11, 2004

Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams Tammy L. Kernodle Northeastern University Press 2004 Five years ago Linda Dahl gave us Morning Glory, the first book-length biography of pianist/composer/arranger Mary Lou Williams. Now Tammy Kernodle, Associate Professor of Music at Miami University (Ohio) has covered much ...

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Article: Book Review

Cuba and its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

by AAJ Staff
August 9, 2004

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo Chicago Review Press 672 pages 2004 ISBN 1556525168 It's worth pausing now and then to appreciate the fact that our understanding of music and culture is a direct product of our ...

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Article: Book Review

Astor Piazzolla: A Memoir

by Javier AQ Ortiz
July 29, 2004

Natalio Gorin Translated, annotated, and expanded by Fernando González Amadeus Press, 2001 ISBN 1-57467-067-0 Fernando González, Jazziz's current editor, translated and fortified Natalio Gorin's documentation of a musician's memoirs described as a God on stage and a son of a bitch off it. The account is unavoidable reading ...

Article: Book Review

The New York Times Essential Library--Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings

by Colin Fleming
July 10, 2004

Jazz, like several twentieth century art forms, has for decades seemed to gain acceptance as a scholarly concern in part because of a number of renowned writers and critics heralding something that was once, remarkably, regarded as vulgar, base entertainment for the base masses, and now deemed America's indigenous artistic progeny. As with James Agee and ...

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Article: Book Review

The Edge Effect: Treating Memory Disorders With Music

by Daniel Kassell
July 9, 2004

Eric Braverman MD in this just released book The Edge Effect (Sterling) believes that “singing or playing an instrument yourself is an active way in which you can increase GABA." Dr. Braverman, also the force behind creating The Place for Achieving Total Health (PATH Medical in NYC and Penndel, PA) describes the biochemical GABA ...

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Article: Book Review

The Other Side of Nowhere

by Norman Weinstein
June 7, 2004

The Other Side Of Nowhere Jazz, Improvisation, And Communities In Dialogue Edited by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble Wesleyan University Press 2004, 460 pages No topic in jazz is as notoriously resistant to easy explication as improvisation. The most ambitous book ever published on the topic, Thinking In ...

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Article: Book Review

Sonny Rollins: The Cutting Edge

by Kyle Simpler
June 3, 2004

Sonny Rollins, The Cutting Edge by Richard Palmer Continuum Books Besides being one of the most influential tenor saxophone players in jazz history, Sonny Rollins also happens to be one of its most enigmatic figures as well. Given his introspective nature and penchant for withdrawal, Rollins easily comes across as ...

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Article: Book Review

Writer Chris Albertson Revives Bessie Smith Again

by Daniel Kassell
April 16, 2004

BessieChris Albertson Yale University Press 336 pages 45 illustrations ISBN: 0300099029 Reprising his 1972 biography Bessie, Jazz Journalist and long time contributor to Stereo review Chris Albertson has added to the lore of the blues. Historically and culturally the first successful woman entertainer in ...